
.. 1? 

SMITHSOXLVX DRPOSIT. 



LINCOLN 



CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

FEBRUARY 12. 1911 'SA*-iOo. 



X 






THIS APPRECIATION OF 
LINCOLN, WHICH IS RE- 
PRINTED BY PERMIS- 
SION OF "THE DETROIT 
NEWS," WAS CONTRIB- 
UTED TO THAT PAPER, 
FEBRUARY 12, 1909, BY 
W. J. CAMERON, OF 
BRIGHTON, MICHIGAN. 



titte« 



LINCOLN 

Lincoln is the chief saint in the nation's calendar. 
Often as his natal day comes round the national mind 
is slowed to reverent mood. Our memory of him walks 
apart in paths of subdued reflection, for we behold 
him as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 
Here is no bold and valiant figure, with sword and 
buckler and stirring trumpet call, marching across 
his time to the acclaim of hosts; here, rather, is one 
from whom men hid their faces, whose countenance 
was woe-struck, who walked wearily his appointed #• 
way through the bitterest wine press of redemptive^^Vy^ 
blood ever trod by man, save One. y^\k 

Lincoln's whole life lingered in a minor key whick"^ ^ 
through four years rose to a wail, and at the end sank 
into a miserere. If certain great works of literature 
are said to have scriptural quality, his life did show 
a scriptural movement. Like Moses he was nurtured 
with shepherds and husbandmen, and trained in those 
simple virtues which bear the strain of weightiest 
events. Righteousness was burned into his heart as 
the color of the sun into his skin. He came out of the 
west like a prophet, those choosing him knowing not 
what great thing they did — 'it seemed too rash, on a 
purely local reputation, to build so grave a trust in 
such anxious times." His freedom from the common, 
pleasant faults of men was not surpassed by any devotee; 
he was sound to the core of his great heart. Like the 
spokesman of the moral law he stood before the people 
in times that allowed no state secrets, in a tumult that 
demanded daily account of what he did and what he 
thought, yet he stumbled not at all. He left one 
speech that will live with Isaiah's rapt prophecy, and at 
the end he laid down his life as a final sealing testimony 
of his faith. Surely he is our saint, and we do well 
to reverence him. ^^^ -t: . j — 

Abraham Lincoln lives not by what he did^'fet^^NWhat-"^ • 
he was. Z^-^^' ,, > \ 

APR 1*7 1911 ) 




LINCOLN 



"Here was a type of the true elder race, 
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face." 

Intellectual giants do not wring tears from after 
generations. Military genius does not send us to the 
closet of tender meditation. Yet these are the influences 
of Lincoln's life, and they can have no source other than 
majestic moral strength and simple human tenderness. 
It is not by accident, neither by man's design, that we 
commonly think of Lincoln as inhabiting an exalted 
place — like Moses on the mount — where visions came 
to him and he made his vows familiarly to the Almighty 
as his best Advisor; it could not be otherwise with one 
for whom the higher laws were more clearly written 
than the statutes on the books. 

Military genius we acclaim; intellectual superiority 
we boast; but character we reverence, and it were an 
unmeant profanity to hail Lincoln with screaming 
eagles. It was not military genius that accomplished 
Lincoln's work — consummate tacticians and brave 
warriors were admittedly with the other party. 
Intellectual power did not make up his strength — 
the argument was with the other side. But it was 
the moral straightness, clear, spiritual seeing, absolute 
trust in the uncompromised and unentangled Right 
that made the outcome what it was. Behind the 
battle plan was Abraham Lincoln's conscience, behind 
the far flung line of blue was Abraham Lincoln's 
conviction, and this is the true basis of his fame. 

Simplicity and righteousness are the keys to Lincoln's 
life. One is not certain that the last could have existed 
without the first yet it was the last that made the first 
possible. Abraham Lincoln's surpassing clearness 
of vision in our most trying emergency was due to 
the simplicity in which he approached a problem. 
Philosophers had found so many considerations 
on both sides that they were mere weather vanes. 



LINCOLN 



Theologians lent their texts to the most opposite views. 
Politicians found themselves helpless in the mire of 
expediency. Forth came Abraham Lincoln asking: 
"Is slavery right? Is secession right?" Philosophy 
had its involved answer, theology its prosy homily, 
politics its evasions. Abraham Lincoln answered his 
simple question in the only way it could be answered, 
and for him the battle was over. He had only to go 
forth in his serene conviction, conquering and to conquer. 
He dared to be simple. He dared to ignore the 
entangling mazes of thought afraid of its own 
conclusions. He found the line between right and 
wrong, and took his stand to await the turning of the 
nation on his principle as on an axis. We little men 
dare not be simple. We cover our consciences with 
layer on layer of compromise and concealment. We 
ask, "What will this involve?" The speed with which 
the answer comes to the question, "Is it right?" 
unhorses us. We crave something more deliberate, 
with easy gradations, something that enables us to 
postpone taking our stand until the multitude is ready 
to stand with us. The complexity mth which we 
have covered the questions of our individual and national 
life is our mantle of cowardice. Dare be simple and 
complexity vanishes — thus was Abraham Lincoln given 
his clear sight. 

When Abraham Lincoln determined what was right 
the battle was over for him — with us it is only begun. 
Between seeing the good and doing it is the battleground 
for most of us. But the perception and the act were 
inseparably linked in Lincoln's character. He dared 
venture on the Right. He dared trust all that he 
was and all he hoped to be on it. That was his faith, 
that his religion, that the ground for his intimate 
thought of God. He seemed to SEE the operation 
of the moral law; he seemed to KNOW that it revenged 
itself on whomsoever violated it. His faith was an 
inner sight. To him the Right was neither philosophical, 



LINCOLN 



theological nor political — it was vital. God help him, he 
could do no other. 

Through four years, every year an eternity and every 
day a bloody age, Lincoln held this faith. Defeat 
after defeat overwhelmed his armies and he held this 
faith. With traitors about him and foes beyond, he 
held this faith. Great Britian was all but leagued 
against him, but he held this faith; and one day our 
children's eyes will behold the letter he wrote in simple 
directness and righteous faith to Queen Victoria, 
wherein he placed the compulsion of the moral law on 
a mighty empire. St. John speaks of the "faith which 
overcometh the world," and it was given the peoples 
to behold it in Abraham Lincoln. 

Faith in the simple right — that is what we reverence 
to-day in our nation's saint. Abraham Lincoln is not 
dead. Even now he calls the nation to the simplicity 
of moral candor in approaching its problems. Still 
he commands it to faith in the right, "as God shall 
give us to see the right," in prosecuting its mission. 
To see the right and to do it — one despairs of ever 
making plain the moral majesty of this simple 
program in these days when vast complexity is woven 
of compromise, expediency and evasion. Yet just 
here is the greatness of Abraham Lincoln, and through 
him the moral salvation of his generation. No greatness 
will ever again come to this people, except along this 
simple path of straightness. To paraphrase his words: 
It is for us, the living, rather to be rededicated to his 
unfinished work, for only thus shall the nation have 
large liberations, eternal emancipations. 

The literature of his centenary year, is sufficient 
proof that the pall of Lincoln's end has not yet lifted 
from the people's heart. He is still "The Martyred 
President," though two have fallen since. We seem 
still to need the words of Emerson spoken at the Concord 
funeral services: 



LINCOLN 



"Far happier this fate than to have lived to be wished away; 
to have watched the decay of his own faculties; to have seen — 
perhaps even he — the proverbial ingratitude of statesmen; to 
have seen mean men preferred. Had he not lived long enough 
to keep the greatest promise that ever man made to his fellow 
man — the practical abolition of slavery? He had seen Tennessee, 
Missouri and Maryland emancipate their slaves. He had seen 
Savannah, Charleston and Richmond surrendered, and seen the 
main army of the rebellion lay down its arms. He had conquered 
the public opinion of Canada, England and France. Only 
Washington can compare with him in fortune." 

Our Lincoln wasted not an hour of his arduous day, 
and when the task was finished heaven saw its 
completeness and gave him early rest. Thank God 
you live in a land that claimed him living and reverences 
him dead. 



LB S 12 



